Sin wrote:
I think the reason why most of the things Liz did are glossed over are mostly because of her reasons for doing them. I mean I personally can't think of anything Max could argue back from the "I did it to save the world" argument.
This actually fits in very well with my argument that it's all about Liz.
If this were the
only thing that Liz did, I would have no problem with it. Unfortunately, this lets Liz off the hook for the 5
previous months where she abandoned the man she loved because she heard some bad news. She made her decision and walked away (this is what I mean about LIz being the controller of the relationship as well). She stayed away all summer, had her own life all planned out by the time she got back, and went to great pains to avoid Max. She had her new life all figured out. That's fine, she can do that. But that doesn't make me overly sympathetic when FutureMax comes back and stops her from rectifying the mistake she made five months ago, and now she's all about her and Max again.
And, it's interesting that
FutureMax was the one who was having second thoughts, and Future
Liz was the one who is telling him that he has to do this.
My point is that Liz gets a pass on every other thing that happened, every other decision she made, every other crappy thing that she said to Max, all because of this one moment, and how bad we all feel for her as she sabotages the future. It's become her get out of jail free card for everything.
That's hardly fair to Max.
Sin wrote:Max never even dated other women because all he saw was Liz ... People were angry because they knew that Max wasn't in character.
From a purely realistic standpoint, I have to disagree. Again, this goes along with my point that it really is all about Liz.
Because of the end of the world moment, Max was now supposed to absorb the fact that Liz deserted him after he was captured and tortured. He was supposed to remain faithful all summer (which he did), absorb the fact that Liz had come back with a new life all planned, one that didn't include him at all. He was supposed to remain faithful, still, while she avoided him every chance she could get. Even though all this happened in the five months
before FutureMax ever landed on her balcony.
He was supposed to gloss over the fact that her normal speech hit every single vulnerability he had (and she never took it back, either, instead letting him know that she had to move to Vermont to get away from him and find normal ... can Max look forward to that every time Liz gets overwhelmed?), see her sleep with Kyle, watch her move on with Sean (oh, look at Sean on the couch while Liz straddles him, Max), listen to Liz tell him that it was okay with him that Sean got stabbed (way to understand your ex-boyfriend's motivations, Liz), invite him to prom only to dash his last hopes, and then let him see her dancing like she doesn't have a care in the world afterward ... Good Lord, what is it
exactly that we expect from Max, anyway? The EotW moment now excuses
all of it? It would seem so.
I'd have dumped Liz a long time ago. I actually don't blame Max at all, and think he should get tons of credit for lasting as long as he did in the face of getting absolutely nothing from Liz.
And let's face it, if the situation was reversed, and Max had treated Liz this way (not talking about the EotW, but everything that happened before it), the clamor for her to move on by episode 3 of season 2 would have been deafening. It never would have
gotten to the EotW , lol.
Sin wrote:I don't think the dreamer division really has anything to do with hating Max (from what I have noticed from the boards and the past debates, posts and other talks I have seen on discussion boards). From what I get from them is that they feel a profound loss of who Max is or was from that storyline.
Exactly ... and there is a wealth of dreamer fic that all seem to begin with Liz going on and on about how Max hurt her (this is that lack of self-awareness of her own choices that I see) that quickly move on to Max spending the better part of the fic atoning for his sins before being redeemed at the end.
Sin wrote:It's not that they hate Max - but they hate what the writers did to him.
My problem with this stems from the fact, again, that while Liz's issues are explored to death and beyond, there is no real
attempt (that I can see) to get into Max's head. At all.
I would really love to read a fic that explores Max's summer after Liz left him. Beyond the one that I started awhile back, I can't even think of one. Not Liz, just Max.
How about a fic that goes into how Max felt after Liz came back and avoided him, and then he finds out that she had a whole new life planned without him? Watch the episode again, watch his face when he realizes that she's been back for two days and is avoiding him like the plague. Just a Max pov.
How about a fic that explores how Max felt when he had to come up with a plan to get Michael out of jail, and he took the risk of being put back in the White Room again if he got caught? Think the guy wasn't scared out of his mind?
Or one where Max talks to someone, anyone, about how he thinks about the White Room? I found one, and it breaks my heart:
http://denlibrary.envy.nu/Fanfiction/Ro ... tories.txt
What about a fic where Max has doubts and fears after he finds Liz straddling normal boy Sean on Amy's couch? Think he didn't have them?
Or one that goes into what Max thinks after Liz accuses him of thinking it's okay that Sean was stabbed? I finally wrote one. It's in the completed CC thread.
Or, how about really, really going into what Max felt when Liz invited him to prom and then told him that she was suffocating ... suffocating! ... because of him and then later he sees her dancing with abandon on the dance floor with Maria, now that this millstone is no longer around her neck.
I know, almost ad nauseum, how Liz feels about everything. I want to know how Max feels about
anything. How does he feel as a guy who was dumped by his girlfriend and hangs on in the face of absolutely no encouragement from her, as he deals with otherworldly issues as well. How he slowly but surely loses hope. Fic that come from his pov, not knowing the things that we as an audience know, but as someone who is struggling with so many things and doesn't understand what's going on.
Sin wrote:Should she really have to deal with the pain of going through what Max did to her every single day of her life?
This is, unfortunately, exactly what I mean. There are two sides to this, and as long as Liz's side gets represented so well, while Max's side is pretty much never even looked into, I'll find most dreamer fic to be Liz-fic.
Sin wrote:Her heroism is probably one of the reasons why she is probably the most pimped out female lead of Roswell. She has the most crossover fics, the most canon fics, the most UC fics, etc. I think for this reason. People want Liz to be happy which is why there is so much fiction about her.
Yes, I've seen this as well. They all pretty much begin the same. Max is either hung out to dry for what he "did" to her, how he "hurt" her (her lack of taking even a modicum of responsibility for her own choices is staggering), or he's now a stalker, unable to let her go, and she must needs find some other male to saaave her from him.
This, again, never takes into account that much of what Liz went through stems from decisions she made and the way she acted.
I find it interesting, though, that in what I've read in UC fics, Liz never does to these other males what she did to Max ... make the decision to break it off because she knows best, completely abandon the guy right after the most horrible experience of his life, find out that she has to save the world (which now excuses her for everything she's done before
and after said event), and then treat the guy in question like crap ... yes, she did ... all while never taking one moment of responsibility. Funny ... Dean, Michael, Zan, Alec, Rath, et al, never seem to have that happen to them by way of Liz.
I admit, too, that I'm still waiting for it to dawn on Liz that the woman she kept pushing Max to was the very last person he should have been pushed towards. It would seem that Mom, FutureMax, FutureLiz, and she herself got it wrong, and Max (and FutureMax to a degree) was right after all.
CYN ... another fic I would love to see. A Max that goes to Valenti (the only person he trusts by now), gets the sheriff's version of what happened, and Max is conflicted between this man who has been nothing but supportive of him in season 2 (to the point of losing his job), and LIz, who has been basically treating him like he doesn't even exist in her world anymore.
I don't honestly think I've ever read one. Not one.
Sin wrote:There are of Max stories where he is his separate identity from Liz and he doesn't apologize for what happened with Tess. I have read at least three of them recently where Max isn't sorry for the ITBAITL stuff. There was even a fic where it seems to be implied that Liz was in the wrong and Max is the innocent bystander that got mowed down by Liz's choices and it seems as if Max had no choice at all in sleeping with Tess and Liz is the one who is wronged for putting him in that position. I personally don't think that works but they do exist.
Again, this is my point. Liz did make the choices in their relationship. She made almost all of them. What I'm looking for is fic that goes into it from a strictly Max pov ... one that doesn't have a Liz slant, just Max trying to make sense of the things that are thrown at him from Liz, starting from the moment she left for Florida without a word, and not starting at the EotW. Ones that don't take into account what we know about Liz's motiviations, just what Max sees and feels and doesn't understand as he copes with all the things that are thrown at him from the moment he escaped the White Room.
Unfortunately, I don't know of many of them.